Febrdabt 17, 1911] 



SCIENCE 



259 



Charge," Harvey Fletcher, University of Chicago. 

 " Note on a Form of Spectrophotometer," Ed- 

 ward L. Nichols and Ernest Merritt, Cornell 

 University. A. D. Cole, 



Secretary, Section B 



SECTION G— BOTANY 

 At the convocation week meetings in Minne- 

 apolis, Section G held two sessions, one on 

 Wednesday afternoon, December 28, and the other 

 on Friday morning, December 30, under the vice- 

 presidency of Professor R. A. Harper. Dr. Wil- 

 liam Crocker served as secretary in the absence of 

 the regular secretary, Dr. Henry C. Cowles. The 

 customary address of the retiring vice-president 

 was necessarily omitted, owing to the death of 

 Professor Penhallow. The program consisted of 

 four special addresses and a number of technical 

 papers, abstracts of which appear below. 



The section unanimously adopted the following 

 resolution regarding the death of Vice-president 

 Penhallow: The botanists of the American Asso- 

 ciation for the Advancement of Science note with 

 sorrow the absence from our meetings of David 

 Pearce Penhallow, long a member of the associa- 

 tion and a year ago the vice-president for the 

 Section of Botany. We shall miss his tall im- 

 pressive figure, his kindly voice and his keen and 

 discriminating discussion. We here inscribe upon 

 the minutes of the Section of Botany this tribute 

 to his worth, and request the council of the asso- 

 ciation to make an appropriate entry upon its 

 record. 



Upon motion of Professor Newcombe, it was 

 unanimously voted to request the council to ap- 

 point a committee to investigate the conditions 

 for research in the Bureau of Plant Industry. 



The following officers were chosen: 



Vice-president — Professor F. C. Newcombe. 



Member of the Council — Professor F. C. New- 

 combe. 



Member of the Sectional Committee (five years) 

 — Professor L. H. Pammel. 



Memler of the Sectional Committee (one year, 

 to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Pro- 

 fessor Barnes) — Professor L. R. Jones. 



Member of the General Committee — Professor 

 C. E. Allen. 



SPECIAL ADDRESSES 



Imperfect Fungi as Causes of Wheat-sick Lands 

 and of Deterioration in the Quality and Yield 

 of Wheat: H. L. Bolley (abstract below). 



The Organisation of the Fruit-bodies of Hymena- 

 myoetes: A. H. Reginald Bullee. 



A Summary of Ecological Results from Colorado: 



Fredehic E. Clements. 

 A South Sea Botanical Trip: Josephine E. 



TiLDEN. 



ABSTRACTS 



The Work of Imperfect Fungi in Cereal Grof 

 Deterioration: Heney L. Bolley. 

 This paper gives an outline of experiments con- 

 ducted at the North Dakota Agricultural College, 

 dealing with the relation of the imperfect fungi 

 in cereal cropping. 



The essential conclusions may be summarized 

 about as follows: the soils of the older wheat 

 areas of the northwest are in the same sort of 

 sanitary condition as the old flax-cropped lands 

 and may quite properly be spoken of as wheat- 

 sick or wheat-tired in the same sense as has pre- 

 viously been shown for flax lands. Wheat and 

 other cereal lands are not necessarily depleted 

 chemically as indicated by many agricultural and 

 chemical writers, but may be only incapable of 

 producing proper yields because of poor sanitary 

 conditions in the soil or in the seed. 



Soil and seed-born diseases have been and are 

 the agents which vitiate the conclusions of many 

 well-planned schemes of agriculture, as, for ex- 

 ample, in fertilizer trials and crop rotations. 

 These diseases, in large measure, account for the 

 types of soil deterioration whicli agriculturists 

 have had largely under discussion; much of the 

 supposed improvement which has been described 

 by such writers as applicable to special systems 

 of cropping and of soil fertilizing have, in large 

 measure, been due to bettered sanitary conditions 

 rather than especially improved conditions as to 

 soil fertility. 



The genera of fungi which have been worked 

 out as destructive to flax, wheat, oats and barley 

 are found to belong to the old group of Fungi 

 imperfecti. Of these the chief ones are Helmin- 

 thosporium, Colletotrichum, Fusarium, Macro- 

 sporium and Alternaria. 



There may be several species of each of these 

 diiferent genera at work. By cross infection, it 

 is found that some of the kinds which attack 

 wheat also attack barley. It is particularly inter- 

 esting to note that practically all of the kinds 

 which attack wheat also attack quack-grass. 

 This accounts in large measure for the destructive 

 influences which quack-grass has upon the devel- 

 opment of the young cereal crop over quack-grass 

 areas. 



Chief among the lines of work which have en- 



